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“Only buy something that you’d be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years.”

— Warren Buffett

The above quote from Warren Buffett is timeless, and brings into focus the choice about time horizon that any investor should think about before buying a stock they are considering. Behind every stock is an actual business; what will that business look like over a ten year period?

Today, let’s look backwards in time to 2011, and take a look at what happened to investors who asked that very question about FleetCor Technologies Inc (NYSE: FLT), by taking a look at the investment outcome over a ten year holding period.

Start date: 10/25/2011
$10,000

10/25/2011
$99,267

10/22/2021
End date: 10/22/2021
Start price/share: $27.94
End price/share: $277.32
Starting shares: 357.91
Ending shares: 357.91
Dividends reinvested/share: $0.00
Total return: 892.56%
Average annual return: 25.80%
Starting investment: $10,000.00
Ending investment: $99,267.35

The above analysis shows the ten year investment result worked out exceptionally well, with an annualized rate of return of 25.80%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 10 years ago into $99,267.35 today (as of 10/22/2021). On a total return basis, that’s a result of 892.56% (something to think about: how might FLT shares perform over the next 10 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]

One more piece of investment wisdom to leave you with:
“It’s not how much money you make, but how much money you keep.” — Robert Kiyosaki